BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Roycroft Inn. Shea's Performing Arts Center. The Martin House. Shark Girl. Anchor Bar, Duff's, or Bar Bill depending on your preference.
Those are the usual suspects when you someone asks you what they should check out when they visit Buffalo.
Brian Hayden, however, has compiled 111 unique places for his new book, aptly named "111 Places in Buffalo that you must not miss."
"This book has been about two years in the making now," Hayden said. "The end result is the culmination of all this hard work and effort."
"111 Places" is part of a series that originated in Germany. There are 500 different version of the book, with Buffalo being the latest.
"The number 11 is a lucky number in Cologne, Germany, where the publishers from, you can't just write about 11 places," Hayden said. "So they stuck another one on there made it 111."
Hayden says he used the opportunity to explore some of Western New York's unique places that aren't discussed as much.
"What you end up having is really something for everyone," Hayden said. "There are off the beaten path places, there are hidden gems, there's places that you might have been to 100 times before and never known the backstory or the kind of interesting nugget that we reveal in here."
Places like Our Lady of Seneca Street, a statue of the Virgin Mary that people leave notes of good luck and well wishes in the mail slot.
Other places like Doris Records, the Olcott Beach Carousel Park, or this journalist's favorite watering hole, Founding Fathers.
"These places are all meant to just deepen our collective appreciation of why we love Western New York, and what makes it so unique and special to us," Hayden said.
Each place is documented with a photograph taken by Jesse Pitzler, a recent transplant to Buffalo. Pitzler had done the photography for "111 Places in Austin That You Must Not Miss."
Pitzler spent a year documenting Western New York for the book.
"For each place, I probably average around 300 to 500 photos," Pitzler said. "We dwindle it down to three and then I submit those to our editor."
The 230+ page book also features a map with each location represented.
The book is now available locally at the Buffalo History Museum, Talking Leaves, and Barnes & Noble.